Comparison of eID solutions with privacy preserving characteristics

05/07/12

For secure electronic identification, smart card based PKI solutions and Identity Provider solutions with one-time-password generators (OTP) have been used for many years. The wish, however, to protect the user’s privacy by disclosing only the minimum amount of required information, has led to privacy preserving electronic identification solutions.

Although electronic identification and privacy protection may sound as a contradictio in terminis at first instance, in practice preserving the user’s privacy is at current the most important concern of eID-issuing organizations and governments.

In this whitepaper we discuss 4 privacy preserving solutions, namely U-prove, Idemix, the French eID, and the German eID. We compare the solutions and argue our opinion about the most suitable solution for a government issued eID.